Awards & Engraving

February '19

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A&E FEBRUARY 2019 • a-e-mag.com 63
Chicago, we have an electronics company
called Abt. It is an electronics mecca like
no other. Every appliance under the sun
is on display in their 450,000-square-foot
"showroom."
Abt is not a showroom per se, but
rather a series of lifestyle rooms where
you can see the items you are thinking
about purchasing in action as though
they were in your house. If you are
looking for a certain appliance, you can
go there and leave knowing everything
about it and any competing brands. This
is another example of how the big are
getting bigger.
The model works. On any given week-
end day, you struggle to find parking
there, and police are directing traffic in
front of their store. The business model
that Abt employs is twofold: make it so
much fun to shop for electronics that you
would not think of going anywhere else;
and have your footprint be so big that
everyone knows who you are, whether they
shop in person or online.
RH and Abt are two examples of the
changing face of retail. It is about edu-
cation, perception, and sheer size. It is
about impressing the buyer. Despite the
large footprints that these two compa-
nies have on the brick-and-mortar side,
their online presence still rules their rev-
enue stream. Companies such as RH and
Abt have realized that it takes a multi-
pronged approach to attract today's buyer.
The chain store models of yesterday will
not cut it in today's retail environment.
Anyone that puts up a store on the internet
or on Main Street needs to think hard
about what it is that separates their busi-
ness from those with whom they compete.
Today's hooks are far more complex than
they were even a decade or two ago.
A SHAKEOUT OF EPIC
PROPORTIONS
Whether we choose to admit it or not,
in the awards and engraving industry, there
is a shakeout of epic proportions. This is
in proportion to what we experienced in
the past. We read frequently that small
retailers are closing, while the larger ones
are growing. Those who are investing
heavily in technology, internet presence,
and infrastructure improvements are well-
prepared to move into the future.
The days of a trophy or engraving shop
in almost every town in America are long
gone. The products and services still exist,
but fewer players control these. Unfortu-
nately there are far less shops today, and
our industry has shrunk. This is strictly a
symptom of the changing retail environ-
ment, as we are not immune to today's
different buying habits.
Our industry's RHs and Abts have
names like Crown, Monarch Trophy
Studio, Trophy Depot, Spikes, and K2.
This is no secret, as any online search
brings any of these companies and a few
handfuls more to the forefront. All of these
companies have large online marketplaces
that were once only a pipedream in our
industry. Monarch Trophy Studio in San
Antonio even has the closest thing to RH
and Abt in our industry: a beautiful and
large showroom packed with products
and knowledgeable personnel to help
customers.
Today, these companies and a select few
like them are the visionaries who invested
heavily in things like search engine opti-
mization (SEO) early on, and infrastruc-
ture technology and personnel resources
in an effort to position them for the long
haul. Along with vision, this needs capital
investment, and only a select few have the
resources to invest what it takes to accom-
plish the position in which they now sit.
For the most part, they and others like
them seem well-positioned for the long
haul. Unfortunately it comes at the expense
of many small companies that do not find
themselves with comparable resources.
So as an industry, we are not dying but
changing. Fewer players control more of
the landscape. There is no reason to think
that our industry's buyers are any different
than those in other industries. The same
socio-economic factors that are prevalent
everywhere else exist among those of us
in the awards industry. The key to sur-
vival is the ability to both recognize what
a buyer wants, and to be able to allocate
the resources to accommodate those needs.
It is critical to accomplish this in today's
retail environment. There is no escaping
what is happening here.
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